


Alphabet Soup

by BlackBlood1872



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Agender Character, Asexual Character, Gen, Genderfluid Character, Lesbian Character, Might add more tags later, Pansexual Character, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-16 23:36:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15448359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackBlood1872/pseuds/BlackBlood1872
Summary: Titled because of the lovely acronym: QUILTBAG (Queer, Undecided, Intersex, Lesbian, Trans, Bi, Asexual, Gay), or more commonly, LGBTQIA+. Basically, lots of letters = alphabet soup.Collection of various short stories or drabbles about the Danny Phantom characters being Hella Gay™[Posted because I just heard about the nonsense with Hartman and wanted to add to the aggressive gayness. Even though I haven't really been in the Phandom for years now.]





	1. Paulina

When Paulina was born, she was wrapped in a blue blanket. His nursery was painted like the sky, and the ceiling glittered at night with stickers that looked like stars. As a child, she played with trucks and Lego, and spent her time in the park roughhousing with the boys, and watching the girls whenever she could.

Why couldn't she play with them? She wondered. Her friends scoffed when she asked, and José said it was 'cause they all had cooties. Who wanted to play with _girls_ , anyway? Diego chortled with him, and they went back to the sandbox.

Paulina kept quiet after that, and didn't dare leave her steady group to mingle with Lucía and Dulce and Ana, even though she _really_ wanted to.

When Paulina was six, she started school. She immediately hated it, and begged her mama to let her be home schooled. But her mama wasn't swayed, and she spent first grade in a miserable heap, feeling so out of place.

That feeling only got worse in second grade, and Paulina started to wonder if maybe it was _her_ that was off, and not her classmates. She would look forward to group projects, like most her peers, but she enjoyed the times when she was with mostly girls, rather than boys. Diego and José hated when that happened, but since their class had ten girls to four boys, there was really little choice.

Ana became her new friend, even though José teased her for it.

Paulina looked forward to other things that José sneered at, like the art projects and the optional sewing lessons. Ana and Lucía loved sewing together dolls and shirts, and Dulce was one of the best artists in the class, and Paulina found herself hanging out with them more and more often. José became meaner as this happened, though Diego just took to ignoring her.

At the end of second grade, Paulina was spending all her time with Ana and Lucía and Dulce, and her papa wondered why José never came over anymore. He wondered why Paulina only had girl friends now, and when had that changed? (Paulina tried not to bring friends to her house after that interrogation.)

Paulina loved Ana's house. Ana's room was nothing like hers – Ana had so many dolls, and frilly things, and her bunk bed was pink and white and made Paulina think of princesses. They spent hours playing with dolls together, creating stories, and having the most fun Paulina could ever remember. It was almost painful to leave every night and go back to her cold blue room, full of hard plastic and video games that she rarely played.

Maybe something was wrong with her. The only problem was, Paulina had no idea what.

Just before third grade started, Paulina cornered her mama and asked if she knew what was wrong with her. Her mama made a noise that struck Paulina in her heart, and crouched before her to hold her hands. "Why would you think that, _nene_?" she asked, squeezing Paulina's hands.

Paulina bit her lip and stared at their hands. "I don't..." she shook her head and pulled away one hand to grip her light blue shirt. "I want to be more like Ana," she said quietly. "She gets to have dolls and pretty clothes and her room is better than mine. I don't like trucks or Lego or the games José likes. So... so there must be something wrong with me, right?" Paulina looked up and didn't know how to read people well enough to understand the storm in her mama's eyes.

"Paulino..." her mama breathed, and Paulina shuffled awkwardly before her mama pulled her into a crushing hug. "There is _nothing_ wrong with you," she said fiercely. "You are _perfect_ , and I don't want you to ever feel like you're not. And... I'm sorry," her mother whispered into her hair, "that we pushed you to be someone you weren't."

Paulina hugged her mama back just as tightly, and felt something in her soul smooth out.

The morning of the first day of third grade, Paulina woke to find something new – and wondrous – in her room. Hung over her desk chair was a new outfit that she could do nothing but stare at for several long minutes.

"Are you going to try it on, _nena_?" her mother asked softly from behind her. Paulina turned to her, blinking rapidly, before she broke into a bright grin. Her mother smiled back, and Paulina latched onto her in a tight hug, voice failing her.

_Thank you!_  she wanted to exclaim, but her throat was blocked (by her heart) and her eyes were warm, and no words would be enough anyway.

When Paulina was eight, she went to school dressed in a bright pink shirt and black leggings, and she didn't care what José said. She couldn't have been happier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Transgirl Paulina  
> Dead name: Paulino (cuz that was the easiest alternative, lol)  
> Nicknames: nene (little boy), nena (little girl)  
> Background OCs: José, Diego, Ana, Lucía, Dulce (all of whom we will never see again)
> 
> A lot of the time, transgirls are really aggressively feminine and that's all I can think of when I see Paulina in canon. Ergo, she's gotta be trans*, right? Totally.   
> (sorry if that view is insensitive, that's just been my experience) (also, I identified as transmale for a while, and I was aggressively male during that time, so I kind of just flipped the gender and went for it)


	2. Valerie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one reads a little oddly, I think. Sorry. The pronouns might be hard to follow? Let me know if it's too horribly confusing.

Sometimes, Valerie hated her father.

She knew he was a good man, that he was trying his hardest to take care of her and still keep their family afloat after her mother's death. However... The days when Valerie was at her darkest were the worse, because he _refused_ to _see_ what she was going through. He had enough on his plate, he'd yelled one night. Why couldn't she just be _normal_ and let him have something _easy_ in his life?

Valerie hated him on the nights they fought, when she felt like she was misplaced in their apartment, in her own skin. When all she wanted to do was get away (from this town, from this life, from _herself_ ) but she _couldn't_.

When her father lost his job, when living became even harder, Valerie eagerly took the chance to have something steady to hold onto. Even if that steady thing was her rage towards the new ghost "hero", she would take anything she could just to feel like she was _worth something_.

And as time went on, Valerie didn't even need her hate towards Phantom. Instead, she had her alternate identity to cling to, and she spent so many of her nights as the Red Hunter that she could barely remember what it was like to not be him.

The Red Hunter was powerful, and Val delighted in how Phantom and the other ghosts feared him. He was more than just a high school student, more than just a simple child. The Red Hunter was someone to be reckoned with, and Valerie _loved_ that. It was something he desperately needed when his days were spent hiding behind a mask, when he couldn't be who he truly was.

A lot of the time, now, Valerie hated Vlad for how he used her. But she would never not be grateful for the chance to be _himself_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Either Genderfluid or Demiboy Val (maybe both?)


	3. Danny

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the longest of the ones i have written

Danny had never been actively uncomfortable in his own skin until he became half ghost. Then everything about his body felt off, weird, unfamiliar. It was like someone had warped his memories and switched his body for a version he never dealt with before, and his clumsy moments after the Accident were more because of this than his random intangibility.

He didn't tell his friends about this. He couldn't, fearing that this would push them too far, would show them just how much of a freak he'd become.

It was painful, some days, keeping all those weird feelings inside when he wanted nothing more than to just rip his skin off and be done with it.

Dani, when she came into his life later, was someone who understood. She knew what it was like to feel like her body wasn't hers. She knew what it was like when her body betrayed her.

* * *

After a time, Danny noticed that he would _flinch_ every time he heard people talking about him. About _him_ and _that boy_ _there_ and _what was he doing_.

It felt like his stomach was trying to crawl up his throat, and he'd walk away as fast as he could without gaining attention. He ran, because he hated his reactions, and he hated that he didn't understand _why_. Why was he reacting like this? Why, when he'd been called a boy all his life. Why did it bother him _now_?

Of course his friends noticed. _This_ was worse than just feeling weird in his skin, because _this_ was a visible reaction. And of course they asked about it. And by now, Danny was just too tired to try and brush it all off.

Danny flailed his hands uselessly. "I don't know! Everything's just– wrong!"

"That explains everything, thanks," Tucker muttered. He winced when Sam elbowed him.

"Maybe start with what's bothering you so much," Sam suggested. "You're a lot jumpier than usual, and I _know_ it's not ghosts." There hadn't been any increase in attacks lately – if anything, they were _less_ frequent.

"No, no, it's not ghosts," Danny said. He slumped forward, arms folded on his lap, and sighed. "I don't even _get_ what's wrong. I just... Every time I hear people talk about me, I get upset. I don't know _why_."

Sam narrowed her eyes. "Nobody's been saying anything mean. Not since Dash stopped bullying you."

Danny cracked a smile that dropped after a second. He twisted his hands together and kept his gaze on them. He... didn't want to see what their reactions might be. "I get upset... when they call me "him"."

"You don't like that pronoun?" Tucker asked. Danny glanced up to see his friend eyeing him speculatively. Tucker squinted at him. "Do you... like "she" better?" he asked hesitantly.

Danny cringed. "No."

Sam snorted. "How about "they", then?" she said. Danny blinked, tilting his head back and forth. That... wasn't bad. Better than either of the other options.

"Maybe," Danny said slowly.

"Does this mean I can't call you dude?" Tucker asked next.

"No, that's... that's still fine," Danny told him. "I just don't like the pronouns. Or being called a boy."

The longer Danny spoke, the more... _they_ felt better. This was okay. Their friends didn't mind, weren't disgusted or mad. They even had an alternative third person descriptor that didn't make them feel sick, now. This was... going much better than every other major event in their life.

Sam started tapping furiously on her phone. "So, if you're not male or female, what gender are you? Not to be rude," she says with a quick look, eyes darting to theirs then back to her phone. "I'm honestly curious. Are you agender, genderqueer, or genderfluid? Or something else?"

"Uh–" Danny stared at her, eyes wide. "I don't– I don't know? I literally just decided what pronoun I like. I haven't looked any of this up."

Sam rolled her eyes. She stood up and dropped onto the bed beside them, practically shoving her phone in their face. "Here. The non-binary wiki has a list of genders. What feels the most _you_?"

Danny took the phone hesitantly. They scrolled through the list slowly, reading each blurb carefully. Sam watched over their shoulder, while Tucker took out his own phone to entertain himself.

A few minutes passed. Danny clicked through the rest of the site, too, checking the definitions of the binary genders before going back to the non-binary ones. Finally, they tilted the screen back towards Sam, finger hovering over one of the terms. "I think... this one?"

"Gender neutral," Sam read out. Tucker looked up and hummed.

"'No gender at all', gender neutral or 'non-binary gender', gender neutral?" he asked.

"Second one," Danny said without having to think it over. They felt like _something_ , even if it wasn't male or female. They _could_ have gone with the term "genderqueer" but... Danny wasn't quite comfortable with it. One of the pages they'd read mentioned how the LGBT+ community had reclaimed the word, but for them, personally, it didn't sit right.

Good thing for them, there was a million and one different terms to chose from.

"Good to know," Tucker said. He paused a moment, then aimed a lopsided grin Danny's way. "Thanks for telling us, Danny."

Danny looked down, answering grin on their lips. Sam punched their shoulder lightly. "I'm glad you're not keeping this buried," she contributed. "That's not healthy."

"Yeah, I... definitely feel better, now that this is out there," they confessed. "I'm glad you asked. I don't think I ever would have mentioned anything on my own."

"That's what we're here for," Tucker told them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gender Neutral Danny.  
> in which Danny is new to the LGBT scene but their friends are there to help them.  
> The characterization is all over the place, I'm so sorry. I wrote this one today and I didn't do any research.   
> Also, holy carp, how do you end things. Just, please you guys, stop talking. So, if the ending seems abrupt, that's cuz it is. I couldn't think of anything else to add that wasn't forced.

**Author's Note:**

> My [Tumblr](https://blackblood1872.tumblr.com)


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